Beauty was behind a pane of glass

All our lives, we go around thinking we know our family, our friends, ourselves. Woolf shatters this illusion for us by showing that you can never know enough about another to understand the whole person. As readers, we've been given an immense portrait of Clarissa Dalloway; one that even her closest friends can't get. We see Clarissa through her own eyes, as well as the eyes of those around her. But character is infinite. There is always more to reveal. Clarissa herself had a theory (dictated by Peter) that "to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places. Odd affinities she had with people she had never spoken to, some woman in the street, some man behind a counter--even trees, or barns." It resembles the age-old question, if walls could talk, what would they say? The full person cannot possibly be known until you observe through the perspective of the walls, trees, companions, and strangers.

Too often, we forget that this depth, this complexity belongs to each person we come into contact with. It is easier to focus on the surface, making judgements based on the apparition. To many at Clarissa's party, Clarissa Dalloway is little more than a face. She is charming, the perfect hostess. No one stops to think of the human underneath. I think one of Virginia Woolf's goals was to demonstrate that even a worldly, frivolous party woman has a story, complete with a brain capable of deep, philosophical contemplations.

When we fail to acknowledge each other's humanity, pain and conflict arise. Thus we enter the cycle that captured Septimus. A few powerful individuals didn't seek to understand a few other powerful individuals, so they fought. Their power allowed them to set their faceless minions against each other, not even recognizing that each had a story and a name. The soldiers, whose individuality had been stripped by the system, were forced to view their enemies as sub-human, desensitizing them entirely from the moral dilemma of killing and watching their comrades get killed, causing them to overlook humanity to cope.

Septimus, a shell-shocked survivor, describes himself as blocked off from the world by a pane of glass. He is incapable of seeing anybody or anything as others do. Other people, such as Dr. Holmes and Dr. Bradshaw, don't look below the surface by choice, and for this reason, they represent human nature. This aspect of human nature--overlooking the true meaning--has been imposed on Septimus by human nature itself. Because other people saw him through a pane of glass, no matter how hard he tries, he can't see through his own cloudy pane. The difference, though, between Septimus and those who choose, is that, because the blindfold was forced upon him, he is fully aware of its presence. His awareness causes him to see what those around him choose not to see, while simultaneously alienating him from the world. As Septimus puts it, the glass kept him distanced, such that "even Holmes himself," the epitome of human nature, "could not touch this last relic straying on the edge of the world, this outcast, who gazed back at the inhabited regions, who lay, like a drowned sailor, on the shore of the world."

Septimus is terrified by Bradshaw and Holmes, whom he uses as symbols for human nature, because he knows that neither of them truly seek to help him. Woolf allows us to experience both of their minds, and we know that they don't see Septimus as a person, but rather as a case to put on their records and further their own agendas. "Once you stumble . . . human nature is on you." The aspect of human nature that allows humans to overlook other humans only perceives the outward appearance of Septimus, and, as we see through Rezia's thoughts, Septimus appears crazy. No one except Septimus and the reader is aware of his deep, often accurate musings. Even Rezia, who believes she is on Septimus's side, can't see past the surface. After his rant about Dr. Holmes, "Rezia could not understand him. Dr. Holmes was such a kind man. He was so interested in Septimus. He only wanted to help them, he said. He had four little children and he had asked her to tea." Holmes and Bradshaw represent what the world interprets as success, while the ones who see through the mask are labeled mad.

In all states of mind and appearance, there are ideas of inexplicable beauty. We each impose a pane of glass on ourselves when we refuse to seek out the beauty behind the individual, the part that remains after our bodies fade and rot. Clarissa believed that "since our apparitions . . . are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or even haunting certain places after death." Septimus did just that to Clarissa. Without even knowing each other, Septimus's story attached itself to Clarissa, as if his inmost person connected to her inmost person through their shared thoughts of death.